In a very brief Observer interview (found by MI6, who mistakenly call it the Observer), John Barry, composer for twelve Bond films, from Dr. No through The Living Daylights, manages to be extremely quotable and funny.

My favorites?

I wrote [Goldfinger] for Shirley [Bassey] and the whole score. I was called to the offices afterwards and Harry Saltzman [co-producer of Bond] said: ‘That’s the worst fucking song I’ve ever heard. We open in three weeks and if I had time I’d throw it on the crap heap.’

and…

George Lazenby in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was probably the worst Bond ever, but it’s one of the best scores. He was so bad I felt I had to make up for it with the music.

Priceless!

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The interview appears in Observer Music Monthly, a magazine included with The Observer. The Observer is a sister Sunday paper to The Guardian which appears Monday-Saturday. Other Sunday papers have different names and editors to their Mon-Sat sisters, but the names are usually either the “Sunday Blah” or “Blah on Sunday”. For the official history, see http://www.guardian.co.uk/information/theobserver/story/0,,1038111,00.html